Even in relation to issues that are not explicitly about independence, the question of independence drives forward political debate in Scotland by providing a plausible counterfactual against which events and proposals can be evaluated.
As a result politics is more advanced than in England, which currently lags Scotland by about 12 months, if the evidence of Project Fear 2 is anything to go by. Observing debate in England recently from my vantage point of Scotland, one is struck by its almost infantile naievity, with statements that would be immediately rejected as patently ridiculous in Scotland being entertained and given currency in the English media and commentariat as though worthy of serious consideration.
This is brought sharply into focus by the UK Labour Party leadership contest. We see the serious deployment of moves from the Project Fear Playbook which would be considered utterly transparent in a Scotland weary of such cynicism and more than capable of subjecting such moves to withering critical scrutiny. The strenuous efforts to smear the virtually unsmearable Jeremy Corbyn are simply laughable to anyone in Scotland who endured the establishment hysteria that characterised the last few weeks of the referendum campaign last year.
If the UK Labour Party wants to see a vision of their future they only need look north. The tragedy is that the people of England need a credible alternative.
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